Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Theodore Roosevelt at the Panama-Pacific Exposition: “A mother who is not willing to raise her boy to be a soldier is not fit for citizenship.” “I’m not for war [ed.: ha!], I want peace, but don’t want peace for Uncle Sam because outsiders don’t think him worth kicking.” He says the US has been “culpably, well-nigh criminally, remiss” in not increasing its military preparedness. Just look at how screwed Belgium and China are, he says. “The average Chinaman took the view that China was too proud to fight,” he says, using Woodrow Wilson’s phrase. “The professional pacifists, the peace-at-any-price, non-resistance, universal arbitration people are now seeking to Chinafy this country.” Not surprisingly, he calls for universal military service for men and for preparing our souls. “If we become soft and flabby physically and morally we shall fail. No nation ever amounted to anything if its population was composed of pacifists and poltroons, if its sons did not have the fighting edge”.

The South Wales coal strike is over, after Lloyd George comes down to mediate personally. They love LG in Wales.

With one dead at the Standard Oil strike in Bayonne, NJ, the national guard is sent in. One unusual feature: the sheriff orders the arrest of guards who came out of the plant with clubs and attacked strikers.

The US government will start suing Americans to whom it provided relief funds when they were stuck in Belgium at the start of the war. Just the wealthy ones who can afford to pay it back.